Sims Talk: Free Time hobby determination

[strangetomato]

I'm getting pretty ready to install Free Time, especially now that InSIM SimPE has been updated (that was fast). I will, however, need a plan of attack for all of my story sims, and their hobbies. I have a little list going already, and maybe I'll post it later to think out loud. I just found a list of traits that determine a sim's "true hobby", so I thought I'd share, in case you haven't seen it yet. This gives me a good idea of what my sims might end up with, but I'm not really liking how this element of the game works.

So it seems that the pre-determined "true hobby" that sims are given with Free Time is based on a combination of personality, skills, and interests. And here are the categories (I swiped this from the BBS somewhere):


Arts & Crafts - sloppy, nice - creativity - culture, fashion
Cuisine - neat, lazy - cooking - food
Film & Literature - shy, lazy - charisma - entertainment, culture
Fitness - outgoing, active - body - health
Games - playful, grouchy - logic - entertainment
Music & Dance - outgoing, serious - creativity - entertainment
Nature - sloppy, playful - cleaning - animals, environment, weather
Science - neat, serious - logic - sci-fi
Sports - active, grouchy - body - sports
Tinkering - shy, nice - mechanical - toys


I'm not really into this idea. It's way too limiting and it creates these "types" for each hobby. (Oh, but why don't I love grouping people into limiting categories? It's so much fun. *sigh*) Like aspiration, why not let us look at the personality of our sims and determine the hobby interest ourselves? Or let it be random, or at least more random than it is right now. The way it's set up now, you can only be into certain hobbies if you have a certain personality, which is, quite frankly, bullshit. I know plenty of musicians that are not serious, plenty of neat artsy types (more than sloppy ones, really), and why on earth would you need to be grouchy to enjoy sports? Argh, I say. Argh!

Using Buck Grunt as an example, he could end up with cuisine (not so bad), science (errm...), or he could end up with tinkering. Tinkering, people! What happened to him wanting to be a "pet stylist to the stars"? I have no idea why shyness would be connected to tinkering, anyway. Seriousness would be more accurate, in my opinion. But how limiting is that?! I want him to have arts and crafts (and he'll have it, don't worry), but the game creators have decided that a neat sim wouldn't like sewing? This makes no sense to me. Have they never heard of Martha Stewart? She's not exactly a slob.

... and Nervous Subject will probably like sports? That just seems wrong to me too. Shouldn't outgoingness be a factor for that one too? (I think I'm leaning towards film and literature for Nervous, myself. I haven't decided yet, but he does seem to like to read a lot, despite the high energy level.)

I'm not sure what to think of it all, really, but I don't really like it. It's just too limiting for me (but at least gender was not a factor). I think I will be taking the hobby destiny of my sims into my own hands, in most cases.

So what do you think?

Edited to add: My brain read that as InSIM, but I should have said SimPE. Oops! I need a nap.

Comments

[music-simbol.livejournal.com]

I think it's fine if you end up choosing each of their hobbies to fit with your story. It wouldn't make sense if Tank's was anything but fitness or sports, at least story wise. Just follow simgaroop's little tutorial, and all will be well.

It would be cool just to document what the game automatically gave everyone, but past that, choose for yourself.

(And looking at this list, my self sim would probably be arts and crafts or film and literature. Cool!)

(ps, what skintones do you use? I'm looking for some for veronaville.)

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

When you're doing a story, it just makes sense to choose, doesn't it? I couldn't see Tank with anything but fitness, really. And Ripp's would be music (though a lot of that is determined by his LTW and how I've handled him in the story - I could also see him with games, if taken in another direction).

I'm so glad that Simgaroop did that tutorial. It makes my task so much easier.

I'll definitely document what they would have gotten and post it, so we can all gawk at it, but it will be one of the first times that I will take a major detour from the way the game would naturally present them. (Heh. Look at me! I think I know them better than the game does. *snicker* Ego, much?)

I have no idea what my selfsim would get, since she doesn't fit neatly into any of those pairings of traits. Maybe science. *snort* Not THAT is a joke.

You mean, like replacement skins? I don't use anything for skin. Just the Maxis defaults. The only replacements I have are Lyran's eyes, and Pixel and Bean's alien eyes.